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Cody Plasterer

Iwanted to get away from home. I came from Maine. I pretty much applied to every school in New York. I wanted a small school, somewhere where I’m not a number. I went to a college fair, and UC was there. I just talked to them, and I really liked what they were saying. And then I came to one of the accepted students days, and I really liked what was going on. My program, which is biology, and just the general school itself, I really liked it. I need to have that one-on-one interaction with my professors.

Ever since I started here, I’ve just been joining more and more things. I stage-manage the theatre productions. I did Leadership Weekend my first few months here. I’m an RA now. I’m treasurer of two clubs: Optimists Club and UC PRIDE. I’m also in Circle K. What else do I do? Oh, my goodness. Too much to name, probably. I TA for a couple of classes.

The bio program is really good. I think all programs here really like to have that close connection, and they all do it very well. The professors literally have an open-door policy. You can go in whenever you want. You can talk to them or you can e-mail them, and they’ll reply.

I like Joe Gutowski, the new head of student activities. He’s just been here a short time, but he gets a lot of things done really quickly. He’s really cool. My favorite bio professor is Dr. Kurtz. He’s so kooky, and he says the strangest things, and it’s wonderful. He’s also my advisor – my academic advisor and my club advisor. I talk to him all the time.

I found out that I can do a lot more than I thought I could. Like, I could really stretch myself. I don’t know, I just found out that I could try and do a bunch of different stuff, and I’ll find a connection with people no matter where I go.

I’m not much of a homebody, so for me, it really wasn’t much of an adjustment. Some people go home on the weekends. Me, I’ll go home on break – and maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll stay here forever. It was really easy for me to adjust here, I guess.

I’m hoping to go into veterinary medicine, but I have a backup plan. I’m doing research next year, and if I really like that, I think I’m going to go toward that route and see what goes on in graduate school. It all depends.

This school, it like recognizes you. You’re not just a face. We know your name. We know where you’re from. We know your major. We know what you do. It’s really nice. I like how many faculty members know my name. I’m like, thank you. I don’t know how they do it. I’m impressed, because I don’t even know all of their names.